“The crucifix is the source of hope”, this is the theme of Pope Francis’ catechism at the public audience on Holy Wednesday. Pope on the cross that Jesus turned suffering into love: we must rid our hearts of superfluous things and rediscover thin values.
(Vatican News Network) We are in the middle of Holy Week, and the time of Jesus’ death is approaching. For the disciples, the teacher was crucified, died the cruelest and most humiliating punishment in the world, and his tomb marked the “terminal station of hope”. Pope Francis presided over the public audience on Wednesday in St. Peter’s Square on April 5, with Holy Week as the theme of his catechism. The hopelessness that weighed on the disciples is not new to people today, the pope noted.
“Gloomy thoughts and feelings of defeat also coalesce within us: Why is there such indifference to God? Why is there such evil in the world? Why does inequality continue to grow while the desired peace does not come? Why do we love war so much, Hurting each other? How much hope is shattered in everyone’s heart, what a disappointment! Also, the feeling that things were better before, that things in the world and even in the Church are not what they used to be…. In short, even today, Hope also sometimes seems to be buried under a monolith of distrust.”
The Pope repeatedly raised this question: today, where is your hope? As the disciples see, we have before us the image of the cross, but the disciples later understand that new beginnings begin with the cross. This, the Pope stressed, seems paradoxical, but tells us that hope in God sprouts “in the black hole of our disappointment in expectations”. From the cross “out of that terrible instrument of torture, God has extracted the greatest token of love”.
“The tree of death became the tree of life,” said the Pope, reminding us that God’s beginnings are often our ends: He loves to work miracles so much. Today we want to gaze at the Tree of the Cross and let hope sprout in our hearts, from Grief is healed.” The Pope went on to mention that he used to look at the passers-by when he was walking on the streets of the parish. poison to the Church and the world”.
The pope invited people to look at the crucifix, on which Jesus was stripped and wounded. Deprived: He is God who allows everything to be deprived of him. We are so obsessed with appearance, we are always willing to show our makeup to others, “thinking it is important to show off so that others will praise us”. We fill ourselves up with excess and “find no peace”. The robbed Jesus reminds us that hope can be reborn by revealing our true colors, the pope said.
“What is needed is this: a return to the heart, to what matters, and a simple life, stripped of many useless things, which are substitutes for hope. Today, when everything gets complicated, we lose our head, so we need Simplicity, and rediscover the value of indifference, abandonment, cleansing of everything that pollutes the mind and makes us sad. Each of us can think of a useless thing, get rid of it, and find ourselves again.”
The Pope stressed that Jesus was wounded physically and spiritually. “Jesus is helpless, betrayed, delivered and denied by his disciples”. He is mocked, and the crowd prefers to release Barabbas. How, asks the Pope, can all this “help our hope”?
“Brothers and sisters, we have been hurt too: who hasn’t been hurt in life? Who hasn’t had the scars of past choices, not understood, pain left in the heart that’s hard to get over? Who hasn’t been wronged What about experiences of harsh words, harsh words, and ruthless judgments? God does not hide from us the wounds that penetrated His body and soul. He shows them to show us that His Resurrection can open new avenues: to allow our wounds to become transparent. light hole.”
It all depends on how we treat our wounds, the Pope said. Suspended on the cross, Jesus continues to conquer evil by loving and “forgiving those who have hurt him”. What should we do? Continue to resent and grieve, or connect to Jesus?
“If instead of weeping for ourselves, we wiped away the tears of others; if instead of holding grudges for what was taken from us, we cared for those in need; if instead of repeatedly thinking about ourselves, we bent down to help Suffering people; if we don’t long for love for ourselves, but satisfy those who need us, then our wounds can be a source of hope. Because we can only find ourselves when we stop thinking about ourselves. “
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